CHURCH
Notes
Transcript
Intro
The Church is Bigger Than Me
The Church is Bigger Than Me
Community is like family and family matters.
We say here in NXT that part of our vision is to BRING. Bring is all about building a community. What did I say about community?
Community is like Family. And Family…Matters.
Church is a family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.
And just like your family is more than just you, you need to realize that your church family is more than just you.
It would be really easy for us to make church all abut us. But the way for church to really be the church is for us to realize that church is bigger than me.
Here’s a couple practical ways to do this that we can start doing here in NXT:
Bear One Another’s Burdens
Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.
Each of us is dealing with stuff. It might be a sin struggle, it might be an interpersonal conflict, it might be a broken heart - whatever it is, God is calling us to bear one another’s burdens.
That means, when you are part of the church, you don’t have to carry it alone. You have brothers and sisters who can carry it with you.
When One Suffers We All Suffer
If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.
Related to bearing one another’s burdens is suffering with each other. That’s what it means to have compassion for someone. When they hurt, you hurt. When they celebrate, you celebrate.
When you care about someone else so much that you hurt when they hurt, you are showing that church is supposed to be bigger than you.
Your Gifts Are For Us, Not Just You
And the same is true for you. Since you are so eager to have the special abilities the Spirit gives, seek those that will strengthen the whole church.
When I spoke about the Holy Spirit last week, I mentioned that the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. I heard that a lot of your small groups got into that conversation on Sunday.
Here’s the thing with spiritual gifts, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 that the purpose of spiritual gifts is not for you to be special or important - look at me! The whole reason that you have spiritual gifts is to build up and strengthen the church.
The Church is Bigger than Me, and it’s Bigger than You.
The Church is Bigger Than This Building
The Church is Bigger Than This Building
Let’s go one step further. If we’re really gonna understand what Church is, we need to see that it’s bigger than this building.
We can get so caught up that this building is the church.
The church is the people of God, not the building we meet in.
So how do we prove that the church is bigger than this building? We prove it with Unity.
In John 17, Jesus prays for you. Did you know that?
The biggest thing he prays for is unity. The unity of the church is proof to the world that Jesus is who he said he is.
I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.
We are not church rivals with Westwood, or Wooddale, or River Valley, or any of the other churches in our area. We are on the Same Team. We are brothers and sisters.
The Church is Bigger Than This Country
The Church is Bigger Than This Country
The word “catholic” means “universal”
It means everywhere. The church of Jesus is global.
And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.
America is not God’s chosen people. We are not the center of the world.
The Church is God’s people.
Outro